


Crimson Peace

by endeni



Series: Red [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Blanket Permission, Emperor Hux, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Post-Movie(s), Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 01:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6136273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endeni/pseuds/endeni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hux feels it is a matter of destiny that he be given a chance to sit on the throne that rules the galaxy." - The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimson Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, it seems like I've been working on this fic forever! And now it's finally finished! Many thanks to [pony_express](http://pony-express.livejournal.com/profile) for being such an excellent cheerleader! ;)

 

 

Kylo is let out of the bacta tank.

As he lies shivering on his medical cot, he sees general Hux approaching.

His mask, Kylo thinks, as his fingers rise to touch his face. He stares at his hand in horror, finding it made of shining metal.

The girl, he recalls suddenly. The snow, the battle. _Father_.

He remembers, now. Hux, retrieving him from the what was left of Starkiller Base, carrying him to the Finalizer.

“We're on route to Snoke's location,” the general tells him.

Kylo looks up into Hux's eyes and finds his own fear reflected back. Fear of whatever punishment Snoke might reserve them both.

With a sickening crouch, he closes his metal hand into a fist.

 

Snoke puts him into a relentless training.

Kylo's body has been healed and he's begun to familiarize himself with his new metal limb.

His mind is a conflicted mess, though.

He's haunted by what he did for Snoke. On Snoke's orders. The test he was put through.

He could ask this of me again, Kylo realizes one day. Unbidden, the image of general Hux surfaces in his mind. He remembers the fear coloring Hux's eyes. A crack in his severe façade, making him look almost brittle and strangely human.

It's too late, Kylo repeats himself. Too late to go back. The only way now is forward.

Besides, he still desperately wants the power Snoke is offering. The knowledge.

Kylo trains and tries desperately to lose himself in the work, tries not to let the Supreme Leader see his doubts and his pain.

He knows he'll meet the girl again. And when it will happen she won't make a fool out of him again. No one ever will.

 

***

 

Somehow, the Resistance finds their base. Betrayed, Kylo thinks, they've been betrayed.

 

The Supreme Leader is crossing swords with Luke Skywalker, their fight is breath-taking to see.

Kylo is facing the scavenger girl once again.

This time, Kylo isn't physically injured. He should be able to counter her attacks. To ward her off.

Yet, she's winning. Again.

There's a constant sound pulsing at the back of his head, deafening. Luke Skywalker. His presence in the force like a scalpel thrust into his temples.

He wasn't prepared. Wasn't ready to see him again.

He just can't seem to focus.

His brain keeps conjuring up the image of his father, dying. Of his own sword, plunged deep into his father's chest.

“Ben, stop this!” Luke Skywalker's voice, rising over the clamor of the lightsabers and the rumble of air-crafts fighting in the atmosphere. "There's still hope for you!"

His voice isn't changed, Kylo thinks. He could still hear it at the back of his mind, from time to time. He's become used to drowning out the noise, losing himself into acts of mindless destruction. But this not a mere memory.

Step after step, Kylo loses ground under the girl's assault, until she drives him into a corner, his movement restricted.

And then, the Supreme Leader is shouting too. “Finish him, girl! Use your anger! Get your revenge!”

With a scream, the girl charges forward and Kylo can't help but laugh. Bitterly, more than half-hysterically.

_Snoke is using you for your power_ , his father had said. _When he gets what he wants, he'll crush you._

Kylo can feel the scorching heat of their combined swords now, dangerously close to his skin.

His father had been right. Deep down, Kylo had known it too. He hadn't wanted to see.

A sudden motion. A blow, catching him unaware and sending him slamming against the wall.

This is it, he thinks as he looks up at the girl raising her sword.

“Rey don't-” his uncle's shout is drown out by a loud blast. The ceiling, caving in. The chamber they're fighting in fills with smoke, dust, debris.

Kylo coughs, trying to clear his lungs. He hears heavy boots hitting the floor. Then, hurried, clipped words: “Move, you idiot!”

Hux, grabbing his arm and lifting him upright. Picking him up like he did that one time in the snow.

“Move, move!” White helmets drawing back though the murky air. Baster fire covering their way out.

Soon, he's seated inside a shuttle ship, looking out of the viewport as the planet below becomes smaller and smaller, Resistance fire lighting up the sky.

“Fire!” Hux shouts on his comm as soon as they reach the atmosphere. “Fire, now!”

Kylo sees a red beam leave the Finalizer and explode on the planet, right over Snoke's base.

Through the Force, he feels the deaths of Snoke and Luke Skywalker and the scavenger girl. A gaping hole left where their presence was.

Kylo reels on his seat, breathless, as their shuttle approaches the Finalizer and slips into the hangar bay.

“Make the jump!” Hux yells into his comm.

Kylo watches as the stars stretch into blurred lines.

 

***

 

Kylo feels hot and cold at the same time. And eerily disconnected, like his mind is full of cotton. He shakes his head. _Wake up_ , he thinks.

“You should be in sick bay,” Hux says, looking at him with critical eye. He grabs him by the arm when he doesn't move. “Come,” he says briskly.

Kylo lets himself be led out of the hangar bay. They've almost reached their destination, when the realization hits him like a punch to the gut. He stops, suddenly furious. “It was you,” Kylo blurts out, his words echoing through the empty corridor.

He turns toward Hux, grabs him by the neck, pushes him against the wall, hard. Hux's head makes a satisfying dull sound as it hits the durasteel surface.

“You, you're the one who gave our location to the Resistance,” Kylo snarls.

Hux squeezes his eyes a moment against the pain. But he doesn't move to grab Kylo's arm. Or the blaster at his side, the comm in his uniform. He just raises his chin. He looks defiant, almost irritated. Like this is something he is _allowing_ to happen. For now.

Under his hand, his flesh one, Kylo can feel the heat of Hux's body, his rapid pulse. If he concentrates, he can almost see the blood flowing though his veins.

“I'm also the one who got rid of Snoke,” Hux grits his teeth in what is almost a mocking smile. “You're welcome, by the way.”

He doesn't even bother denying, Kylo thinks.

“Not just Snoke,” Kylo forces himself to say, “you killed Skywalker too.”

His uncle, his old master. Kylo can still remember the disapproval in his voice. He will never forget. The rejection. The disgust.

Ever since knowing about the map, all he had wanted was to find him. He even risked going against Snoke's direct orders.

He didn't know if he could have brought himself to do what he had to, in the end. Maybe he would have fought him, killed him. Maybe it would have been enough to see him one more time. Still, it should have been his choice to make.

“Your place is with me, Ren,” Hux is saying, chin still raised high, staring straight at him. “Think about it. There would be nothing to stop us. Not now that Snoke and Skywalker are dead.” Hux takes a breath. Kylo can feel the vibrations running trough his arm. “Under my rule the galaxy will finally have peace. _My_ peace.” And then, enunciating each word carefully, almost hesitantly: “Will you join me?”

Yes. He's free to choose his own allegiance now, Kylo realizes bleakly. Free to choose between two equally bad alternatives.

He could listen to that part of himself that hadn't stopped screaming ever since killing his own father. He could go back to his mother and face the consequences of his actions. Pay the price for all the people he betrayed and the atrocities he's committed.

Or he could choose Hux. Follow his grandfather's legacy. Be a slave. Like Vader had been, like he himself had been under Snoke.

“I could just kill you,” Kylo finds himself saying. “Aren't you afraid I'll put my sword through your chest?”

He could. Kylo can feel the power gathering around himself, like electricity cracking through the air. Hux must be able to feel it too. Yet, he presses closer, as if daring him to carry on with his threat.

“But you won't, won't you?” Hux says in a whisper, an arrogant smile stretching those lips. Mesmerized, Kylo watches the freckles on his cheeks widen around it. “Or you would have done it already.”

Kylo moves closer too, so that they're staying almost nose to nose now. As a warning, he tightens slightly his grip on Hux's throat.

“And what would happen afterward anyway?” Hux continues, his voice rough. “Do you think my troops would ever follow _you_? Do you think after all you've done the Resistance would embrace you with open hands? Not even your mother could forgive you now and you know it.”

Shut up, Kylo wants to scream. “Why?” he ask instead. “Why betray Snoke? And _how_? How could you keep your intentions hidden from him?”

"I can keep my thoughts in check, thank you," it's Hux's answer.

"You never could from me before," Kylo retorts and dives viciously into Hux's mind to prove it.

For a moment, all he can sense is an impenetrable, blinding scarlet light, a bright spot of color in a gray world. It matches the brilliant light of the explosion that took out both of his masters. Matches the blood red of his own blade.

_Maybe you only saw what I wanted you to see_ , Hux's insolent thought, echoing loud and clear.

_How? How does he do that?_ Kylo thinks.

It's like looking into the void and being sucked in. Like staring straight at the sun.

But then, Hux's minds opens for him. Slowly, carefully. Welcoming him in.

Kylo can see himself now. Lying on the bloodstained snow, crouched on the cold pavement of Snoke's chamber. Waiting for death.

He can feel Hux's shock at seeing Kylo so still and broken.

He sees himself through Hux's eyes. So much power and so out of control. And he feels Hux, desperately _wanting_.

Hux, looking at Kylo's missing hand and his marred face and thinking: _I will have vengeance, the Resistance will pay._ And: _This is going to be the last order I follow._

Hux, deciding to expedite his plans.

 

_...For me?_ Kylo thinks.

 

With a start, he lets go of his grip on Hux's neck, on Hux's mind.

 

The general brings a hand to his throat. “Don't flatter yourself,” he says with a grimace, almost automatically. But it's too late to hide behind words now.

“You came back for me,” Kylo says, stunned. _You did, again and again._

“I almost didn't,” the general spits. “But I need you," he confesses. "I... want you, want you by my side.” A pause. Hux, squaring is shoulders, raising his voice ever so slightly. “I'll ask again: will you join me?”

Will he?

Kylo thinks of Hux's cultivated, clipped voice telling him to get up. Hux, disobeying. For him.

The general isn't a force user, yet he isn't afraid of Kylo of the Knights of Ren, the Jedi Killer. (Not like the shadow that always hid behind mother and father's eyes. _Father._ )

Hux knows what it means to be born with the full weight of your family's expectations on your shoulder. And by killing both of his former masters he just set Kylo free, took the burden of that responsibility away from him. Hux was offering him a way out.

Both his masters had wanted something from Kylo, wanted to shape his behavior, wanted him to follow their lead. And they both rejected him in the end.

Hux cares for him where Snoke and Luke Skywalker didn't. He cares _despite_ himself, Kylo realizes.

No, he wouldn't be Hux's slave, he thinks. He would be his match, his right hand man. He would _surpass_ Vader's legacy.

He thinks: I belong with him.

 

Kylo drops to his knee right where he stands, in the middle of the hallway. Then, he takes one of Hux's hands into his metallic one, brings it to his mouth for a kiss. Through their single point of contact, Kylo can feel him shake with a low thrum of excitement.

Slowly, he looks up.

“My Emperor.”

Hux's eyes widen, his lower lip caught between his teeth in a shockingly delicate, tantalizing expression. Kylo knows the general's lips are a pale pink but in this stark, colorless corridor they seem to take an almost blood-red shade. Just like his hair.

Hastily, Hux grabs him by the back of his neck, hauls him into a burning kiss.

Kylo responds in kind. This too, is his decision to make.

He loses himself in the firm grip on his hair, the warmth of Hux's mouth.

“Later,” his Emperor whispers before detaching himself.

“Now, we have a galaxy to conquer.”


End file.
